Quinnen Williams, DeMarvion Overshown fixing Cowboys' defense, gearing up for Patrick Mahomes

FRISCO, Texas -- After the Dallas Cowboys (5-5-1) defense produced season-bests in sacks (5) and points allowed (16) in their 33-16 "Monday Night Football" win at the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 11, it was easy to point to the NFL trade deadline acquisition of All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams from the New York Jets as the reason why. Williams himself downplayed his own impact at the time saying "one man don't do anything. It's not golf. It's not tennis."

Williams is making it harder and harder to downplay his own impact after Dallas' 24-21 victory over the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles (8-3), a game in which the Cowboys were able to tie the biggest comeback in team history after trailing 21-0. After the Eagles scored touchdowns on their first three drives, the Cowboys defense forced them into five punts, a missed field goal and a lost fumble across the rest of the game. Williams tied his career-high with eight quarterback pressures on Sunday against Philadelphia a week after racking up seven quarterback pressures against Las Vegas. His two-game production as a Cowboy makes him the only defensive tackle in the NFL this season with seven or more quarterback pressures in consecutive games in 2025. 

"Just appreciating the way he's [Williams] coming in with the energy and confidence, speaking life into the defense, into the D-line room," Cowboys defensive tackle Osa Odighizuwa said postgame on Sunday. "It's very much needed and very much appreciated." 

He's also altered Dallas' run defense with the Cowboys going from being the fourth-worst run defense in football without him in Week 1-9 (143.0 rushing yards per game allowed) to being the league's best with him since Week 11 (45.0 rushing yards per game). That's why the Cowboys are averaging 12.5 fewer points per game with Williams anchoring the middle of their defensive line alongside Odighizuwa and three-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Kenny Clark. It's also helped that explosive linebacker DeMarvion Overshown (knee, made season debut in Week 11), third-round rookie cornerback Shavon Revel (knee, made NFL debut in Week 11) and both safeties -- Malik Hooker (toe) and Donovan Wilson (knee) -- have all returned to action since Dallas came back from its Week 10 bye week. 

"It's a lot of things, actually. The five down fronts have been really good for us. Quinnen is an incredible player. I think the fits have been a lot better," Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said on Monday. "I think we've talked about that at length, I think for the past six or seven weeks, some of our fits and stuff have been off and we've gotten better with our eyes. We've talked about how we wanted to train the linebackers eyes a little bit differently and were starting to get that done. But we've gotten a lot of guys healthy too and I can't talk enough about our safeties with [safety] Malik and [safety] Donovan Wilson] those guys do an incredible job helping secure the front when they drop it in there. It's not as simple as one player. Great team defense is exactly that, team defense."     

* On bye week in Week 10

Williams himself has leveled up since playing alongside Clark and Odighizuwa, nearly producing as many pressures in two games as a Cowboys (15, the most pressures in a two-game span in his seven-season career) as he did in eight games with the Jets this season (19). 

"I think everybody is taking accountability and trying to do things that we can individually do to win football games. You got guys like [DeMarvion Overshown] coming back. He's playing great football. You got Logan Wilson here. And you got guys in the defensive line room, man, who just been balling and doing the things that they can do to win football games," Williams said postgame on Sunday. "And I think just we're hitting our stride and it's all coming together. "Like I always say, man, one person can't (turn it) around. I can't go out there and do everything on my own. Nobody can. It's a team sport and I just think we're all putting our heads together and executing as one."    

Typically, NFL teams will rotate defensive tackles in and out of the game, typically only playing with two defensive tackles on the field at a time with the two starters receiving the bulk of the reps. The Cowboys have morphed into running more five-down fronts, lining up with five defensive linemen on the field, to accommodate playing their three high-level defensive tackles. Odighizuwa (77 defensive snaps), Clark (75 defensive snaps) and Williams (73 defensive snaps) lead Dallas' front seven in play time since Week 11, noticeably ahead of the Cowboys' edge rushers and linebackers. Rookie second-round edge rusher Donovan Ezeiruaku is the closest edge rusher or linebacker to the three DTs in defensive snaps with 65 across the last two weeks. 

"Yeah, they're good players, and we want them out there. A lot of people have said, well, how are you going to play all those guys? You know, you got three elite defensive tackles, and there's ways to do it. And the rotation was really good," Schottenheimer said." [Defensive line coach Aaron] Whitecotton does a great job with that, but, you know, our job is to play our best players, and I think we showed we're going to do that. They've rewarded us with some really good play over the last two weeks."   

How good has that level of play been? Raiders rookie sixth overall pick running back Ashton Jeanty (six carries for seven yards rushing) and Eagles 2024 NFL Offensive Player of the Year running back Saquon Barkley (10 carries for 22 yards rushing) were both stuck in the mud. That's why Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones views Williams as instrumental to the team's future. 

"Instrumental to now and the future. That's instrumental. We had to have something at this level of excellent on run stopping that he brought to the table. We had to have that," Jones said postgame on Sunday. "We didn't need to give up pass rush to get it, and we knew since before we left training camp that he could do that."

* Fewest in a two-game span in franchise history  

** On bye week in Week 10

In Overshown's mind, Dallas' defense is "kicking other people's asses" with Williams in the fold. He's talking like edge rusher Micah Parsons, his former Dallas All-Pro teammate, used to, which makes sense because he's playing like him. Overshown and Parsons are the only players in Cowboys history with 75 or more tackles (96) and five or more sacks (5.0) in their first 15 career games. 

"Oh yeah. It's always fun when you're kicking other people's asses. You never want to get away from that, that's part of the game. So when you're winning, you're playing well on defense and you know that's just the tip of the iceberg. That's just getting started," Overshown said on Tuesday. ..."We all ahve the same common goal, and that's going out there, and carrying the light of our brother Marshawn (Kneeland). And that's winning football games. When you have 11 guys on the field with that mindset, anybody across from us is in trouble. ... We're going to be able to do whatever we want to when it comes to the games, we got the dawgs to do it. It's just about being intentional about what we do."

Containing Patrick Mahomes

Overshown and Mahomes grew up just under 15 miles apart from each other, 13.5 to be exact, in East Texas with the 25-year-old linebacker in Arp (population 1,055, per Census Reporter) and the three-time Super Bowl MVP quarterback in Whitehouse (population 8,794, per Census Reporter). Overshown grew up playing rec league sports against Mahomes' younger brother Jackson, specifically recalling a time his second grade basketball team beat the younger Mahomes' squad for a youth league title. Now, he'll chase around the future Hall of Famer who captivated East Texas for years. Overshown's athleticism will be key as a potential quarterback spy given Mahomes was the Chiefs' leading rusher in the early part of the season. He's now Kansas City's No. 3 in rushing yards (318) and No. 2 in rushing touchdowns (4). 

"It's going to be fun. I like my abilities, so it's going to be if that's what he decides to do. We got a good  plan, a good game plan for it," Overshown said Tuesday. "More stats for me ... East Texas has been talking about this since the schedule popped up, so it's 903. ... We're going at it. Somebody has to win too. ... I know his voice, and he's going to  know mine too because I'm gonna be chasing him."